I love St. Francis and his famous prayer. I want
to believe that it is indeed in the giving that we receive. I want
to believe Dave Matthews and to understand at a deep level that I
only truly begin to live when I give - that I'll get the world! It
just doesn't jibe with my checkbook ledger, however. If I give - how
will I live?

The Old Testament practice of offering to God the
"first fruits" -- the very choicest of each harvest -- was a means
of bringing human beings around, very gradually, to the realization
that God wants our best from us. That, as a matter of fact, what God
wants from us most of all is the gift of ourselves.

While I think
that giving things back to God is not required, everything I do comes
from a place of sheer gratitude, not because I have to, or feel obligated
to, or think God will "punish" me if I do not, but because I honestly
desire to and cannot "not" do it, thank God.

Many of us want to die. We want someone somewhere to give us permission
to just let go. I've talked to people and I've been there myself.
It's the place where we just wish we could die, but we know we can't
kill ourselves because we know that is not what God wants. Something
or someone is holding us to this life, but sometimes that is not enough.

The greatest tribute I can make to a person is to keep my mind in
that place for that person is truly the only person at that moment
in time that means anything. To be of benefit to them or to myself
is to be there with all my available thinking powers. I must keep
all my thoughts with them.

Inspired by this event and the story of Lars Clausen, who launched a
journey of understanding called Straight
Into Gay America, Sapp, 40, and Berry, 52, decided to take
their new-found boldness on the road and go gay into straight America
- as it were.

The Christian right-wing has worked to correct Jesus' claim that Caesar
and God represent two separate allegiances, by seeking Caesar's buttressing
of their faith. God needs government subsidy. It's a cultural war after
all. God should be more patriotic.

After
decades of the Vatican implementing a system that takes authority
away from local communities and presumes to impose its will on Catholics
who can think for themselves, it is time for Catholics to stand up,
speak out and resist.

When
people think of HIV/AIDS, they have a picture in their mind of someone
who is terribly thin, with sunken cheeks and perhaps even covered
in lesions. However, this is not the case anymore. The face of these
diseases has changed very much from when they were first diagnosed
in the late '80s.

Indeed,
how does pandering to ignorant stereotypes about people (women,
the poor, substance abusers, gays and lesbians or anybody else) help
society in any way? Should we not demand more from our media? Can
we complain that they don't give us more when we never demand it from
them?

As
Whosoever celebrates its ten year anniversary, we'll be presenting
articles that have appeared over the years about Whosoever or by Whosoever
founder and editor Whosoever Candace Chellew-Hodge. This article originally
appeared in the December 19, 1996 edition of Bay Windows.

The
Whosoever community is, very much, a community of conviction. We come
together because we care about the same things. We get to know each
other, and come to care about one another. I read the stories of the
struggles and the epiphanies of other sexual minorities who share
my faith, or who are seeking faith, and they become a part of me.
Every time I click into Whosoever, I feel the same sense of anticipation
that I get coming to church, or going away for a workshop or a retreat.
I always wonder: "How will I grow this time?"

The
discussion around marriage is more than one of benefits. It's a discussion
about the type of society we want to live in. It's the question of
whether the "certain inalienable rights" of "life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness" are American ideals or simply nice ideas. It's
about what we want to teach our children.

In
the fall of 2005, Immigration Equality represented Dulce, who is now
in her 20s, in her application for asylum. Recently, the New York
asylum office granted her asylum, so Dulce can remain in the U.S.,
free of fear of persecution.

When we look around and all we see is the unfairness of life, it's
easy to get discouraged - to stop paying any attention to the things
that might discourage us. It's easy to fall into a sort of a spiritual
sleep - to forsake this world for the next. It's easy to look at the
evil and the problems in the world and dismiss them as beyond our
concern, and most definitely beyond our ability to change them.

God
beseeches us to fight for justice and righteousness! In the context
of our love for all of God's creation, the Church, God's called out
ones ("ecclesia"), is to be in the vanguard of embracing and cherishing
people; fight any oppression visited upon others; embrace all of God's
children, particularly the marginalized and the oppressed.

We
gay and lesbian Catholics must not let our enemies outside ourselves
define who we are. We must let the Spirit of God, the Spirit of love
dwelling in our hearts, define who we are. And then give witness to
all the great things the Lord has done for us. What, then, should
be our attitude toward the institutional church?

Over the next few months, I'd like to share with you a few of my favorites
from the 150 psalms that have been handed down to us. May they stir
up embers that may have cooled over the years and stoke the flames
that still brightly burn in our hearts.

Even though we know that it is only through God's grace, or unmerited
favor, to us that we will spend eternity with Him, we still seek to
put burdens upon ourselves and upon others. These burdens give the
illusion that we are righteous and deserving of God's mercy. However,
believing that illusion is probably the greatest sin of all!